


My Fury Will End A War

by xwannaflyx



Series: Kishimoto Did the Girls Wrong [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Tsunade (Naruto), Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Good Orochimaru (Naruto), jiraiya's mostly along for the ride, then orochimaru cleaning up after her, tsunade fixing things, tsunade's grief is rage and it'll topple mountains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xwannaflyx/pseuds/xwannaflyx
Summary: The day that Dan dies, Tsunade cries and screams and rages and gambles and kills her way through the week, cursing the gods that took her lover away and wiping away platoon after platoon of men and women that have the misfortune of wearing the same headband as his killer.The day that Nawaki dies, Tsunade stares down at his cold, still body for a very long time. Ignoring everyone’s protests and platitudes, she careful prepares him for burial, buries him, and stands vigil at his grave even as explosions occur around her, Katsuyu standing guard at her back. The next day, she ends a war.
Relationships: Jiraiya & Orochimaru & Tsunade (Naruto), Jiraiya & Tsunade (Naruto), Katou Dan/Tsunade, Orochimaru & Tsunade (Naruto)
Series: Kishimoto Did the Girls Wrong [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1085556
Comments: 21
Kudos: 528
Collections: Konohagakure_no_Sato, Precious Rare and Unique, why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	My Fury Will End A War

The day that Dan died, all Tsunade remembered was the feel of Jiraiya’s jounin vest and the cool pressure of Orochimaru’s hand against her back. Her eyes are filled with the blankness in Dan’s normally warm eyes and she stumbled a step forward—straight into Jiraiya. “Princess,” Jiraiya said gently, something hesitant in his voice and manner. Something hesitant that was nothing like Jiraiya usually was. 

“No,”she whispered, trying to push past Jiraiya. Tsunade, despite all her years and experience in pushing mountains out of the way, could not budge Jiraiya. “No,” she echoed, still trying to push past Jiraiya who suddenly seemed unshakeable. “Dan,” she breathed out, trying to see his bright warm gaze over Jiraiya’s shoulder and wild hair. “Dan!” she called louder, pushing harder now. 

“Tsunade,” Orochimaru said slowly, something immovable in his tone. 

“No,” she pleaded, turning to Orochimaru, turning to the teammate that would tell the truth past the pain. The teammate that would do whatever is necessary to get them through a situation “Oro,  _ please _ .”

Something in Orochimaru’s hard gaze almost softened. “I’m sorry Tsunade,” he finally said quietly, the gentle pressure of his hand becoming more supportive. “I’m sorry.”

Tsunade screamed, raging against the bloody battlefield and the unfair world that had taken her lover from her too soon. She screamed and fought and raged. For the next week, all she remembered was blood as she cut through swathes of enemies as if that would bring back Dan. She plunged her hand through enemy after enemy’s chest as if that might still that ache in her own. 

Finally, on the day they finally had the respite to put him to rest, she stood at his pyre, staring blankly into the smoke. “Princess,” Jiraiya called gently, trying to steer her away from her empty vigil. 

“He was supposed to become mine,” Tsunade said quietly, as immovable as her grandfather’s trees. 

“It is wartime,” Orochimaru pointed out with the blunt tactless sympathy of those that had already lost the things precious to them.

Tsunade finally turned her gaze away from the fire to look at her teammates. “I’m Senju Tsunade,” she said slowly, meeting their gaze. “Those that belong to me aren’t supposed to be lost to me.” She turned her gaze back to the fire, something empty and dangerous in her eyes. “I can turn back death from a patient but I couldn’t save Dan.”

They had nothing to say to that. They remained silent and rejoined her in her silent vigil, waiting for the fire to burn out and the ashes to cool. 

-x-

The day that Nawaki died, the only people that were trusted to tell her were her teammates. Orochimaru, as the sensei, was first, his hand just barely trembling as he offered her the scratched hitai-ate of her little brother and the strangely unbroken necklace of her family. “I’m sorry,” he offered quietly, already knowing the words would never be enough. Jiraiya stood behind him, a sentry to their conversation. A sentry against the reaction of the people and Tsunade’s own reaction. 

“Nawaki?” she asked, a barely detectable waver in her voice. “Nawaki’s gone?” she asked, her voice breaking on the last syllable. 

Orochimaru swallowed uncomfortable, trying to push back the memory of Nawaki’s wide smile when he had received the hitai-ate and how he had bragged about receiving the necklace from his sister. The fondness of Tsunade’s smile and even her yelling and Nawaki’s dramatic screaming when Tsunade had given her little brother noogies. “I’m sorry,” he offered again, unable to figure out what else to say. Everyone always said that he felt nothing; in that moment, staring at the stricken stillness of Tsunade’s features, he wished that was true. 

“Oh,” she half whispered, half sighed. There was a strange blankness in her gaze. Jiraiya and Orochimaru both took an automatic step forward as she took a half stumbling step back. “I need to...” she trailed off, then swallowed, her spine straightening. “I need to—”

“Yes, Princess,” said a sudden, soft spoken voice. As Jiraiya and Orochimaru startled, Tsunade placed an absent minded hand on Katsuyu’s small form sitting on her shoulder. “I’m taking care of the healing,” Katsuyu reassured her contract holder, her eye stalks swiveling up to Tsunade’s weirdly still face.

“Thank you,” Tsunade said quietly, gently patting Katsuyu. Without another word, she turned away from her teammates and walked away deeper into the forest. 

“Princess?” Jiraiya called quietly, taking a half step forward. 

“She goes to mourn.” The two stilled, staring down at Katsuyu’s small form. There was another pause as she broke into two and began crawling up their shoulder, gentle healing chakra flowing into Jiraiya and Orochimaru. “She goes to mourn in the customs of her family.”

Jiraiya sighed, his wide shoulders slumping. “Well, I suppose that went better than expected,” he finally said, offering Orochimaru a wry and very weak smile.

Orochimaru remembered the terrible clawing grief of losing his parents, of becoming the last of a once great and respected family. “Yes,” he agreed cautiously, eyes still fixed on the shadows of the forest. “I suppose it was.”

-x-

For all that Senju Tsunade was in mourning, she was still a Senju. Dutifully, as the last remaining of a larger than life family that had built the village, she sent her healing and chakra through Katsuyu, healing the injured and drawing back the dying to survive. As she stood in the eaves of the forest, selfishly wishing she wasn’t the last and remembering all those lost, she continued to heal and heal and heal. Anyone that tried to disturb her found their way blocked by her teammates, grimly shaking their heads.

She healed and remembered and healed and thought and healed and none of the memories or the customs filled the aching emptiness at her side. 

-x-

At the end of her vigil over the empty memories, Tsunade (reportedly) got into a screaming match with the Sandaime. According to rumors and whispers, Tsunade had supposedly spent an hour screaming at the Sandaime and the Village Elders.  _ Supposedly  _ there had been accusations and blows but no one was going to spread further rumors in the chaos of a battlefield that so desperately needed something good to hold on to. Regardless of what the rumors said, Senju Tsunade still stood at the head of the army, her pigtails whipping around her as Jiraiya and Orochimaru bracketed her, something strong and immovable about the image of their backs. 

Then Danzo fell ill. 

Danzo who,  _ according to rumors _ , had argued the fiercest with Tsunade, had admonished her for her weaknesses and praised Nawaki and Dan for fulfilling their role to the end. Danzo fell ill to a wasting sickness that moved too quickly for Tsunade or Katsuyu to stop. And, in the end, he slipped away, the fragile and small shell of a man who had harbored great dreams. 

“It was a tragedy, sensei,” Tsunade said softly, bracing the Sandaime who stood stockstill over his old friend’s form. “I’m sorry, I just came too late.” Orochimaru and Jiraiya said nothing, remembering the way they had whipped around trees and armies to reach the tent. They remembered the way Tsunade had been unable to turn away from saving a group of Konoha soldiers. They remembered the strange lack of a glow around the Katsuyu that was perched on Tsunade’s shoulder. But before they had been leaders of the military and before they had become legendary, they had been a team that harbored each other’s secrets close to their throats and fiercely guarded each other’s weaknesses. So they said nothing. 

As Sandaime turned to Tsunade, his brow furrowed, Orochimaru cut in, slipping between his sister in all but blood and his teacher who he loved but wasn’t sure he could ever really trust. “She couldn’t have poured her energy into saving just one person, Sensei,” he filled in, using the brutally cold logic that he knew was expected. He didn’t comment on the flash of forgotten suspicion in the Sandaime’s eyes. “What is one life in a war?”

The hand placed on Orochimaru’s hip was just faintly trembling but Tsunade’s expression was unmoving. (Orochimaru tried to remember the last time Tsunade’s lips had trembled and couldn’t.) “We must continue on, Hokage-sama,” she said, her voice gentle with a core of steel. “It is what Danzo-sama would have wanted from us.”

“You’re right,” Sarutobi agreed, something achingly fond sliding through his eyes before fading. “Danzo wouldn’t have appreciated me becoming sentimental.”

Tsunade’s lips twitched into a small smile and Sarutobi smiled back. Orochimaru and Jiraiya exchanged glances and carefully edged the blanket back over Danzo’s face, ignore the flicker gleam of green edged chakra lingering over Danzo’s chest that was wisping away into the air. No one said anything about the almost viciously dead blankness in Tsunade’s eyes. She had suffered many losses in a short period of time; she could not be blamed for her hurt. 

-x-

Hanzo disappeared. One day the salamander summoning fucker was rampaging around the battlefield, barely kept at bay by the increasingly desperate tactics of Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya. (The legendary Sannin, echoed the whispers of the battlefield, watching the blur of movement and the wreckage of large summons with awe.  _ The legendary three _ .) In the next, he seemed to have disappeared. No one could see his stupid face; no one could see the trails of his salamanders. 

“Is he plotting something?” the Village Elders worried, squinting down at the maps, fragile old hands jabbing around the battlefield and moving pieces on their elaborate chessboard. “Has he retreated to come back with something bigger?”

“I don’t know,” Tsunade lied, her brows wrinkling with false worry. “We’ll have to see what Amegakure does.”

“They’re retreating,” Orochimaru cut in, entering the tent half-carrying a bloody Jiraiya and an unconscious scout. “This idiot tried to follow them in to gather more information and had to get half rescued by a chuunin,” he scoffed, tossing Jiraiya at Tsunade and laying the scout down a lot more carefully. 

“Well, he’s our idiot,” Tsunade added, fond exasperation on her features as she knelt down. Her hand coated green and Orochimaru watched silently as she placed one hand on the scout and one on Jiraiya. 

Dismissing the strange loosening in his chest, Orochimaru turned to the Village Elders to report. “Amegakure has been in complete retreat. The forces are completely scattered or back in their own lands. I would recommend against following; there’s plenty of enemies for us here.”

As the Elders turned away to converse their plans, Orochimaru watched with faint interest at the sly smile that crossed Tsunade’s expression before it disappeared at the face of Jiraiya awakening. As she began simultaneously berating him and the poor chuunin, Orochimaru reached into his pocket and clenched his hand around the ribbon in his pocket. Tsunade’s hair was down. He felt the way the slime squelched between his fingers and with a mild surge of his chakra incinerated it all. 

-x-

The next time Tsunade woke and crept out of the team tent, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, without an exchange of words or looks, silently crept out behind her. 

They watched for a long while as Tsunade paced back and forth, conferring with Katsuyu who was perched on her shoulder as always. They stood shoulder to shoulder, their awareness fixed on the still silent camp and their eyes fixed on their teammate. As her chakra began pulsing on crescending waves, the two finally stepped out of the shadows and faced her, saying nothing as her eyes fixed on them with dangerous focus. “Princess,” Jiraiya finally said, his voice fond and gentle as always. 

“Jiraiya,” Tsunade greeted carefully, her brown eyes sharp. “Orochimaru,” she added, his gaze flitting to Orochimaru’s still features before fixing back on Jiraiya’s easygoing smile. “You’re up early,” she finally said, one hand slowly flexing into a fist. 

“So are you, Tsunade,” Orochimaru pointed out, the closest to gentle that he was capable of.

Tsunade’s smile was all fond. “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes still flitting over them. Orochimaru ignored the strangely analytical gleam of her gaze, “there is much to think about,” she offered, her smile fading.

“Including the end of a war,” Jiraiya said, blunt and tactless as usual.

With a long sigh, Orochimaru smacked the idiot over the head. “We said we would ease into it,” he snapped, glaring at his teammate. 

“We exchanged pleasantries!” Jiraiya complained, rubbing the back of his head. “That’s easing. That eased  _ everything _ !”

“This is why no one ever wants to go on a date with you,” Orochimaru snapped right back, going for the ruthless strike as per usual. “Because you haven’t learned even a  _ little bit  _ of subtlety or wit in all these years—”

“Don’t be too hard on him, Oro,” Tsunade suddenly cut in. The smile that broke over her face was relieved and Orochimaru stared at her strangely. “He’s our idiot after all.”

“Oh Princess,” Jiraiya whispered, his expression heartbreakingly fond, “surely you didn’t think we would betray you.”

“And surely you didn’t think we wouldn’t notice,” Orochimaru added with an offended sniff. 

Tsunade felt the cold that her seized her chest suddenly ease as she let out a slow breath, “I wouldn’t dare,” she agreed, smiling.

“So?” Orochimar demanded, casually inspecting his sword for damage, “how are we ending this pointless war?” The smile that grew on all three of their faces was alarmingly bloodthirsty and utterly ruthless. 

-x-

War is tragedy and a young man’s game, Sandaime would say to anyone that asked. He was too old and tired, he would joke, smoking his pipe and drinking his tea. Tsunade would yell at him about the dangers of smoking, snatching the pipe out of his mouth and snapping it in half. Asuma would roll his eyes at the chaos. Jiraiya and Orochimaru would both be absent in the picture, both too busy with their own demons. 

“I’m too scared of what I became,” Tsunade confessed to Orochimaru, far too many bottles into her drink, cheeks flushed and eyes hazy. “It was too easy to watch the whole world burn for my revenge.” Orochimaru nodded, his first cup still untouched and part of his mind still thinking over his paperwork and another part thinking of experiments that would only remain hypothetical now. Most of his mind watched over his heart-sister, saying nothing but willing to take the guilt on his own shoulders. 

He remembered. The way Tsunade had seemed untouchable, a goddess of fury and war and vengeance. But he also remembered the way she had cried in the dark of the night, muffling her sobs on her blanket and on his shoulders. He remembered the way he had to drag her hands away from the wounded, knowing they would survive and knowing she was pouring too much of herself into them. He remembered the haunting glint of her family’s necklace shining on her chest, burning like a brand or an oath she had unknowingly made. He remembered the way they had dragged peacetime into their generation, kicking and screaming and bleeding out. Sandaime was wrong when he said war was a young man’s game. War had always been the elders’ game;  _ peace  _ was the young one’s game.

He remembered, so when Jiraiya ran away to Amegakure, too much guilt on his usually relaxed shoulders and the fear of responsibility in his eyes, he comforted Tsunade. He remembered, so when Sandaime began eyeing the two of them and speaking of passing along the hat (again) and Tsunade’s eyes shone with animal terror, he stepped forward to take the burden. He remembered, so when whispers of another war began to pass along the streets, he and Tsunade stepped forward and reminded everyone that Konoha’s the legendary three may have won the war but two out of three was still nothing to sneeze at. 

The three of them dragged peacetime into their generation with blood and sweat and fire, with disappearances in the night, and fear in everyone’s hearts. The two of them maintained peace with gentleness and a firm hand, with threats and rewards and bribery. Tsunade faded to her own sort of peace, taking in students and healing and healing and healing as if they would make the hole in her heart go away. Orochimaru passed along peace to the next generation with grueling amounts of paperwork and careful manipulation, turning his tricky analytical mind to preventing the blank rage he remembered shining from Tsunade’s eyes. (If he had a couple of drinks, he would admit, only to himself, that he also worked to prevent the empty grief in Tsunade’s eyes and the lost fear in Jiraiya’s but there was a reason he rarely drank.)

Tsunade slowly let go of the grief. Let go of the blanket rage that had engulfed her, fed by the continuous spilling of blood and Katsuyu’s patient understanding. She learned to accept the loss of her precious people and move forward clinging to what she had. She only remembered the rage just once.

(A had been thirsting for a fight. His ego injured and his country angry, he had decided that declaring war on the unofficial winners of the war would be fair. He had felt out their defenses, sending people out against their missions and finally,  _ finally _ , sending someone after Orochimaru. Tsunade barely remembered her reaction. She just remembered the cold wash of rage, of fear, at the alien stillness of Orochimaru’s form, the way his usually pale face was white like death. She knew she had screamed. She knew she poured her chakra into him, screaming at him to come back and raging at anyone that approached. She knew she refused to leave his side, even for Shizune, until Jiraiya returned just long enough to watch over their teammate's prone form. She doesn’t remember the rest.

If any Konohan witnesses are asked, other than by Orochimaru himself, they also remember nothing, they will say, eyes blank and smiles benign. If anyone from Kumogakure is asked, they will say that they only remember the rumble of the ground and dust rising up into the but no one knows where it came from. If pressed, they may admit that their Raikage had gone uncharacteristically quiet at that time. If anyone asked the Raikage, they would get no response.

However, A remembered facing a woman who was barely not a girl, chakra lifting off her skin like fire and blonde hair whipping around her in a fury. He remembered the way she had slammed her foot into the ground, maintaining dead eye contact, and the way a crack had raced across the border of Frost Country to his own. “I dare you to try again,” she had snarled, voice sharp as a blade. “The next time you cross these borders and harm my own, you will not survive the attempt. You or your village.” She had then left, fading away and only leaving a canyon as her promise. A would then remember the whispers at the end of the war, how there had been a war demon—war goddess some whispered, reverent and fearful—that had brought the war to a close. He remembered and retreated.)

But Orochimaru had healed (enough to tell her off for trying to cause an international incident even, dry as the desert) and he still stood beside her. Tsunade ached for the empty people around her, the way Dan was gone and Nawaki had carved a hole through her heart. She ached for the way she had easily trusted the Sandaime and the elders but could no longer trust powers that were not checked by herself. She sometimes felt the empty space by her side where Jiraiya was supposed to be (but he would return, he always did when it was important and in the end the wandering healed his heart). But there were new pieces that soothed the rage like Shizune’s nagging and trust, like Orochimaru’s unshakable calm, like Naruto’s idiot optimism. 

“We live for those we carry in our heart,” Dan had said once, his smile gentle and his eyes bright. “I’m going to build the future!” Nawaki had proclaimed, his grin blinding. So she stood back up and straightened her spine. She was all that remained, so yes, she would live. 

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic for a while but i kept getting stuck when i imagined the way that tsunade would settle down and i couldn't imagine her settling down, not really. but i also thought she was too fragmented and kind to continue just pushing past everything. i've always seen her as a character very capable of great depths and variety of emotions but just a dash more empathy than is always convenient soooooo this is how it resulted


End file.
